ABSTRACT
Developing your own PCK necessarily involves developing an understanding of learners-in this case, the prospective elementary teachers you will be teaching in your methods course. In the vignette above, we see the consequences of overlooking students’ prior knowledge and expectations. It’s easy for teachers to turn their focus toward their own teaching and what they are doing-as a new teacher educator, I was once chided by a colleague: “If you’d stop worrying about what you’re doing and start focusing
on what your students are doing, you’d be fine!” The notion underlying his advice was that knowing my students should guide my instructional decisions. Though elementary education students are unique individuals, they nonetheless share aspects of their background and experiences that contribute to their views of science and science teaching. Many researchers have identified and explored the importance of preservice elementary teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes about science, science teaching, and science learning. In this chapter, we’ll describe some of these factors to help you develop an understanding of the “typical” elementary science methods student. In our discussion, we will identify common points of resistance to learning to teach science that you may encounter as an instructor of an elementary science methods course. We acknowledge, however, that you will teach students with diverse interests and abilities, and that you cannot develop your knowledge of learners and PCK for teaching elementary science teachers by simply reading this chapter; therefore, we will also suggest strategies for you to use in your methods course to further develop knowledge of your students and their particular ideas about science and science teaching. In turn these will help you select appropriate curriculum, instruction, and assessment strategies to support student learning (see Chapters 5, 6, and 7).
